Congestion coming back again after ADSL upgrades

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km2

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A few years ago I got my first taste of ADSL congestion, starting with the usual signs of high/variable pings on the first hop irrespective of the ISP used. Few months later Telkom did their 384kbps to 1Mbps upgrade and it got really bad, with "good" times of the day becoming progressively more and more rare and seeing up to 20% packet loss. Internet got progressively less and less useful over a period of 18 months with Telkom being unhelpful at best, until they finally replaced some of their equipment in May last year. This fixed congestion and changed the first hop ping baseline from 17ms down to 9ms. Some nice new faster equipment installed, the blue/green corner box replaced with a cream Alcatel one.

It's been just under a year of nicely working internet, Telkom has now gone through with the upgrades from 1Mbps to 2Mbps, and my internet is starting to feel bad again. With no other activity on the line I can see pings to the first hop climbing up from the normal 9ms frequently up to 50ms, and periodically up to 200/300ms. And I get the same thing on guest@telkomadsl.

I worry that they spent their upgrade budget on this just last year and it's already struggling to handle traffic, so do I now have four years of progressively ****tier internet to look forward to again.

Anyone else had congestion before, had it cured, and now started to have it again with this round of upgrades?

(Glencairn/Da Gama/Simonstown area - 021 781)
 
I was about to create a similar thread but using much harsher words.

For the last couple of months, ever since the "upgrade", and I use this term loosely, I have experienced progressively worse and worse network latency up to the point where having an ADSL line is becoming pointless for me. I cant watch YouTube, Netflix or Hulu anymore, Skype is frustrating to use, Online games are unplayable. My wife uses the internet extensively for her business (graphic design/editing) and turnaround time with her clients has increased almost exponentially.

I have logged an online fault with Telkom almost a month ago and when I checked yesterday there has been no movement on the issue. I phoned 10210 and after an hour I finally talked to someone who could confirm that there is "too much bandwidth being used on the mini DSLAM" and send out a techie to come and have a look today. He confirmed that the exchange is congested and that there is nothing he can do but that Telkom would be upgrading their equipment again in the new financial year which is from April.

I am seriously wondering what my legal standpoint is because I am paying for a product at the moment which is unusable for our needs and cancelling isn't really an option because there is no other semi affordable uncapped data product available on the market that I am aware of. I wish it was as easy as refusing to pay my bill until they have sorted their **** out.

This is what I am dealing with on a 4MB line:

Tracing route to google.com
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 2 ms 1 ms 1 ms
2 961 ms 1022 ms 1014 ms
3 1094 ms 1115 ms 1001 ms
4 919 ms 1049 ms 984 ms
5 875 ms 881 ms 919 ms
6 986 ms 886 ms 869 ms
7 683 ms 725 ms 668 ms


Telkom SA Speed Test
Last Result:
Download Speed: 1004 kbps (125.5 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 150 kbps (18.8 KB/sec transfer rate)
Latency: 570 ms
2/22/2014 10:04:06 PM

Brackenfell/Protea Heights Area 021 981
 
Vexx said:
He confirmed that the exchange is congested and that there is nothing he can do but that Telkom would be upgrading their equipment again in the new financial year which is from April.
Click to expand...

Oh that line. I got that from Telkom last time I called them about congestion and it's such a frustrating answer. They admit they have a problem, admit it's not right, and it's just... "Yup, we can't currently afford to fix it. Maybe if you're lucky next financial year.". And yet Telkom has been so bad with their customer service, that I still felt grateful that they were at least honest, compared to their previous answers of "your line tests fine, must be the ISP".

The one advantage of the congestion now is that with the newer equipment it seems to have a different policy about how they deal with congestion. On the old system once it went over 150ms it just dropped packets like crazy which would mean that web pages would frequently stall while loading. Now it seems to have bigger buffers so there's less packet loss but climbs up to 600ms+ pings.

Pinging my IS first hop:

64 bytes from 196.210.201.1: icmp_seq=52 ttl=254 time=532.696 ms
64 bytes from 196.210.201.1: icmp_seq=53 ttl=254 time=514.154 ms
64 bytes from 196.210.201.1: icmp_seq=54 ttl=254 time=502.271 ms
64 bytes from 196.210.201.1: icmp_seq=55 ttl=254 time=537.476 ms
64 bytes from 196.210.201.1: icmp_seq=56 ttl=254 time=557.115 ms
 
Meh, same **** different area.

I've basically dropped my line down to the lowest speed possible and switched to a small capped product, all just to keep the damned line which took months to get in the first place.

Forced to use mobile data at night now to have any semblance of decent connectivity in my house.

Same story, exchange is congested, no ETA on when it will be upgraded.
 
What infuriates me is that they apparently have no ETA. With a project as big as this any competent project manager would at least have some idea about when what gets rolled out where. I cant believe that it is so impossible to communicate this to your paying customers.
 
Vexx said:
What infuriates me is that they apparently have no ETA. With a project as big as this any competent project manager would at least have some idea about when what gets rolled out where. I cant believe that it is so impossible to communicate this to your paying customers.
Click to expand...
Precisely!

It is so frustrating when you depend on the line for work. Just like your wife, i do as well...
Everything was good until the "upgrade"... Now I spend more time talking to Telkom, buying 3G data, searching for alternative solutions, than servicing my clients...
What frustrates the most, you keep throwing good money at these ISP's and yet, you always need a a back-up system because none is ever 100% reliable. Let it be Telkom, MTN, Cell C, Afrihost, Neotel, 8ta, Vodafone... i have tried them all....

I often hate comparing SA with the likes of the US or European countries (I have lived in a few)... But it strikes me, that no where else did I ever have issues with congestion on a fixed line network. Not once! And as you all know, this is for a fraction of what we pay here in SA... It probably is pure frustration speaking at the moment, but those constant poor network and infrastructure issues, combined with excuses over excuses, will one day make me pack my bags and go!

So long...
hilrap
 
One more thing. Aside from the current congestion, how many faults do you guys log on average in a year on your Telkom line?
For me it's about 5-6 fault reports a year...

When this happens, your ISP will require you to obtain line tests, they will refer you from one consultant to the next, refer you back to Telkom, than admit the fault is with their network provider (e.g. Afrihost and MTN). Next time it is a fault at SEACOM, yet a Telkom technician discovers a faulty port is responsible for your line brakes... and so forth...

"Shaping", "throttling", "local bandwidth", "capped accounts", etc... This is terminology i have learned in SA.

In other words, you as a client are expected to understand the entire eco-system, while all you want is Internet that simply works...

Never understood that mentality..! If you bring a product to the market, simply make it work!! Don't keep telling your customers the various reasons, why it is not your fault that the network is slow, failing, etc...

just my 2cents for the day .... ;)
 
Yea same issue in Wierda Park for the last 4 months.

Ping to Gateway @ 18:00. this usually last from 18:00 - 00:00 week nights and basically the whole weekend.

PING 105.236.13.65 (105.236.13.65): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 105.236.13.65: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=667.691 ms
64 bytes from 105.236.13.65: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=1001.380 ms
64 bytes from 105.236.13.65: icmp_seq=2 ttl=255 time=724.374 ms
64 bytes from 105.236.13.65: icmp_seq=3 ttl=255 time=698.749 ms
64 bytes from 105.236.13.65: icmp_seq=4 ttl=255 time=809.406 ms
64 bytes from 105.236.13.65: icmp_seq=5 ttl=255 time=844.931 ms
64 bytes from 105.236.13.65: icmp_seq=6 ttl=255 time=806.207 ms
64 bytes from 105.236.13.65: icmp_seq=7 ttl=255 time=865.486 ms
64 bytes from 105.236.13.65: icmp_seq=8 ttl=255 time=634.404 ms
^C--- 105.236.13.65 ping statistics ---
9 packets transmitted, 9 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 634.404/783.625/1001.380/108.256 ms

I've installed ipfire yesterday here is a gate ping graph for yesterday till now.

gatewayping.jpg

But yea same answer from ISP and Telkom. You are screwed :(
 
Last edited:
Does anyone know of an Windows equivalent tool like IPFire to produce graphs like the one above?
 
Hi

Just an update I PM'ed TelkomZA last week and he got my congestion sorted in 3 days i've been without any issues the whole weekend.

Here's my ping graph for the week.



Pieter
 
Telkom moved me to an uncongested exchange after i reported a fault. I was unable to log onto pretty much any site on the net, now (that I have been moved to an uncongested because of the "upgrades") I am experiencing the exact same problems. No change for me. I sit here now with pretty much a wasted 4meg line as it provides no use to me at the moment.

Once the "upgrades" are all done and dusted will we be back to normal? or is this something that is going to be going on a while?
 
TelkomZA PM'ed me as well to let me know that the projected resolution date for the congestion in my area is before end of March.
 
Ditto. The upgrades on my exchange are supposed to have started from the 28th of Feb 2014, so I am eagerly awaiting to see the changes. My line's been unusable at night, can't watch youtube vids at 144p without buffering, online gaming is impossible with the packet loss and browsing is reminiscent of the 56k days.

So hopefully I'll see some changes soon.
 
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